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Monday, February 27, 2012

“Are You Born Again?”

‘Born Again’ Christians usually present themselves as a ‘nondenominational Church,’ an easy way to attract different Christian religious groups to that sect. All Christians are welcomed to their gatherings; but after some prayers and teachings, the pastor will slowly start to inject protestant doctrines into all those who are listening to him. If you are a Catholic he will open the Bible and start to criticize ‘statue making’ and ‘Mother Mary.’ This group believes and propagates ‘Bible alone theory’ of Martin Luther. It has thousands of divisions with contrary views and different names as their members follow miracle workers and preachers at their choice.

The Name Game!

The name ‘Born Again’ is coming from an unauthentic translation of the Bible: Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. I am telling you the truth that no one can enter into the Kingdom of God, unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” (John 3:3-5) Here in the original Greek manuscript of this gospel, John never uses the word ‘born again’ (“palin” is again; born ‘gennethe’).

All Catholic translations are using the correct word written in Greek, ‘anothen’ which means ‘from above’ or ‘born above’ when they translates. The name ‘born again’ itself is an artificial creation of some protestant ministers which was never spoken by Jesus!

Born again people believes, when they confess “I am born again,” automatically they become born again! Just say “I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior” we become worthy to go to heaven! It is like an instant coffee, an easy way and shortcut to go to heaven.

These foolish concepts of ‘Born Again’ groups are coming from the teaching of Martin Luther who said, ‘faith alone is the way of salvation (without works), Bible alone is the basis of faith’ (not the preaching and practices of Apostles as Catholic Church considers holy traditions).

Some preachers of this religion even believe that ‘the Church alone will not save’ and ‘Baptism is not essential for salvation.’ If that is the case, why did Jesus instituted Baptism and the Church?

Just an emotional satisfaction that we get from music and loud shouting of prayers will never make us genuine Christian. The works must follow our faith as St. James teaches “faith without works is dead.” Jesus himself says to us: “Not anyone who calls me Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do” (Mat. 7:21). At the time of Judgment, Christ will come in his glory and he will separate the wicked from the righteous and everyone will be rewarded according to their works. “I was hungry; you gave me food.” “I was thirsty; you gave me drink,” that is the way Jesus uses to judge us. But Born Again trusts in the theory of Luther ‘faith alone is the basis of salvation.’ At the time of Judgment, when Born Again makes a statement: “I accepted you as my Lord and Savior,” will they be taken to heaven? Will Martin Luther come to rescue them by quoting his theory? The way of Martin Luther and the way of salvation that is written in the Bible, are entirely different!

If you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and your personal Savior then you will be saved. Indeed. But how truly you accepted him and not just at the tip of your tongue? Jesus said to his disciples “He who hears you, hears me. He who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me” (Lk. 10:16). Therefore if you truly accepted Jesus as your Lord and personal savior then you must listen and obey the teachings of his disciples as well. Those disciples are the apostles and their succeeding ministers in the only true Church of Jesus that he himself built in the year 33 A.D. in Jerusalem and is still very much alive up until now as it never tasted death as Jesus himself promised (Mt.16:18). And the Catholic Church never taught of faith alone can save any man, for faith alone is dead without work. If you truly accept Jesus then you must accept his Church teaching and the Bible affirms it. But for a rebellious mind, no reason on earth can convince them.

You said: "Therefore if you truly accepted Jesus as your Lord and personal savior then you must listen and obey the teachings of his disciples as well."Truly ACCEPTED(note the past tense) means you need to accept Him first before listening and obeying the teachings of the apostles. This brings me to my point that good works are FRUITS of salvation. As you have already accepted Christ, you already are saved. Then you do good works as a fruit.(My last statement in my first comment: "If the old has not yet changed(No good works), one is NOT YET in Christ. which means one has no possession of FAITH. And no faith means no salvation.")

Can you accept something without knowing it first? Can you accept without listening first? You don't. By knowing Jesus first, you then accept him and follow him - his examples (following Jesus is work). Does accepting Jesus as Lord and savior make you sin-proof? No. Peter who followed Jesus and accepted him as the Messiah did commit sin by lying Jesus 3 times, which if he didn't repent -part of his work, he could loose his salvation as what happens to Judas after following Jesus but repented not of his sins. Many people, like the good Samaritan, theHindus, and many Muslims, do good works even without knowing Jesus and in the essence of the present time they are without salvation. Thus good work alone can't bring salvation. Faith is necessary just as baptism is (there is baptism by desire, as what the theft has obtained - a Catholic teaching only). But you must do the work to live on that faith, not unless you are about to die and don't have to work anymore like the theft on the cross. This means, once you are saved by faith, you can still loose your salvation by sinning and to keep away from sin in your lifetime is a lot of work, thus faith and work has to come together for salvation to work on most people. If you die after your baptism and still has committed sin right before dying and thus has died without repentance by confession, then each one will be rewarded according to what he has done (Rm2:6), one can go to hell for his mortal sin, and as not all sin can lead to death or hell (1Jn5:17), one can go to purgatory for his venial sins - as it is written that not a single sin can enter heaven (Rev 21:27) . But purgatory is part of heaven, like a doorstep to it, that eventually after penance, one can get into heaven from purgatory. This process is necessary, for our God is a God of order not of disarray(1Cor 14:33).

And our God is a God of Justice too (2Thes 1:6), thus big sinner (who commit mortal sins) goes to hell, small sinner (venial sins only) goes to purgatory. For it is unfair if he don't do that - that all sinners big or small all goes to hell - that is injustice! Thus purgatory exist and it is an apostolic tradition taught by the Catholic church from the earliest days of the Church as taught by Christ himself - not all is written in the Bible as we already know. In fact there were no Bible (new testament) in the first 400 years of the Catholic church, proof that it can live without it, unlike all modern man-made Christian churches of today - they can't exist without the Bible.

There's no such thing as purgatory. You are a liar if you lie even once. You are a thief if you have stolen even once. We are all sinners and we are all leading to hell. But through God's grace and love for us, He sent His Son to give us salvation we dont deserve.

"there is baptism by desire, as what the theft has obtained - a Catholic teaching only"What I see here is that the Catholic Church coined this term (baptism by desire) so that the teaching (baptism as a part of salvation) it believes to be true will be justified. If it were up to me, seeing that the thief was saved without baptism, I would have removed baptism as a part of salvation from my doctrine instead of inventing yet another teaching. It is more simple and more accurate.

John 14:6 says that Jesus is THE Way. THE meaning only one. It does not say that Jesus is A way meaning He is a PART of your salvation. Only Faith in Him can save.

"one can go to hell for his mortal sin, and as not all sin can lead to death or hell (1Jn5:17)" I have to disagree with this. The verse was not talking about hell but physical death! Like Ananias and Sapphira instantly died when they lied about the money (Acts 5:1-10) as well as 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 which talks about being handed to Satan for physical death.

Lastly, 2 Timothy 3:16 says "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness"It is the Word of God. And because Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1,14), the Bible has the same authority as Our God! The true church cannot live without the Word.

"In fact there were no Bible (new testament) in the first 400 years of the Catholic church, proof that it can live without it"Even the verse that i quoted from 2 Timothy refers to the Old Testament scriptures. But given the fact that the Holy Spirit guided some men to select His books for the New Testament, He wants us to read them and use them as we use the Old Testament- As SOLE AUTHORITY.

The fact that you think to charge doctrine says something in itself. Jesus said it, the earliest Christians taught it and the Catholic Church is the only church that still takes our Lord at His Word. The same goes for all the sacraments. Do you really believe that the Christians that learned directly from the apostles got it 100% wrong on such a large number of teachings? That seems far less likely than you getting all the translations in your modern day Bible correct. Not to mention, those men you mentioned that selected the books of the Bible are the bishops of the Catholic Church. Think about this, your sole authority is based on the canon of Scripture chosen by Rome and the Catholic Church. God bless.

Good topic! I am not a Roman Catholic and I hope you'll take in my comments positively.

1. The Greek word 'anothen' can mean 'again'. You can check any lexicons. Nicodemus understood 'anothen' as a second birth in John 3:4. It is also correct to say that 'anothen' means 'from above'. It is accurate to translate 'genethe anothen' either 'born from above' or 'born again'. It depends on the context whether or not we should take 'anothen' to refer to position or time. The Lord seems to use both sense.

2. Martin Luther did not preach anything akin to saying, "Just say, 'I accept you as Lord and Saviour' and we will be worthy of heaven". In fact, for Martin Luther, we can't be worthy. Only the finished work of Christ on the cross can make is right with God.

3. The doctrine of 'Bible Alone' or 'Sola Scriptura' does not mean that traditions are not considred. Rather all traditions are considered in light of the authority of Scripture.

What do you think happens after somebody dies? →Do you think there's a Heaven?

If there is one, do you think that you are good enough to go there? →Are you a "good" person?

We can find out by looking at a few of the Ten Commandments that God gave in the Bible.1. How many lies have you told in your whole life?2. Have you ever taken something that belongs to someone else, irrespective of its value, even if it was small?3. Have you ever used God's Name in vain ('Oh my G-o-d!')?4. Jesus said,'Whoever looks upon a woman to lust for her has committed adultery already with her in his heart.' Have you ever looked at another person with lust?

If you have broken those commandments, by your own admission, you are a lying thief, a blasphemer, and an adulterer at heart.

So here's a very important question. - Will you be guilty on Judgment Day? - If you are honest, you know you'll be guilty, and the Bible says that all liars, thieves, blasphemers and adulterers will end up in Hell.

Does it concern you that if you are found guilty, that you'll end up in Hell?It must concern you. You want to live! and you can.

Even though we broke God's Law (that is the Ten Commandments), God became a Man to pay our fine.Jesus suffered and died on the cross (taking our punishment upon Himself), then He rose from the dead and defeated death.

The Bible says 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

That means (because your fine was paid 2,000 years ago), God can legally dismiss your case.You can walk out of His courtroom -- He can let you live forever, because He's kind and rich in mercy.

Inorder to be saved you must 'repent' (that is turn from your sin) and trust in Jesus (like you'd trust a parachute).

If you never repented and trusted alone in Jesus for your eternal salvation, please do it today, you may not have tomorrow.